NUCLEAR TIME LOCATIONS SERIES

At the time of selection, Oak Ridge was named the Kingston Demolition Range and later the Clinton Engineer Works. With the Appalachian mountains to the east and the Cumberland Plateau to the west, this sparsely populated area proved to be an ideal choice to develop what would eventually become Oak Ridge.

NUCLEAR TIME LOCATIONS SERIES

On September 19, 1942, two days after being assigned the lead role in developing the Manhattan Project, General Groves approved an idyllic location in East Tennessee, a series of valleys and rolling hills approximately twenty miles west of Knoxville. US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Oak Ridge, Tennessee These locations were not chosen at random each had to meet special requirements for the Manhattan Project to ultimately succeed.Ĭonstruction at the K-25 site, Oak Ridge. Ultimately, Groves approved three locations for this new clandestine project: Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Hanford, Washington, and Los Alamos, New Mexico. He acquired funding, mobilized a diverse workforce including attracting top scientists, and selected the ideal locations for the Project to ensure secrecy and success in this new, dramatic undertaking. Groves was assigned to manage the Manhattan Project. In September, 1942 United States Army General Leslie R. Several delays in mobilization prevented the Manhattan Project from moving forward. In the spring of 1941, several British scientists implored Roosevelt to initiate development of an atomic weapons program in the United States, hoping to beat Nazi Germany in the race to develop this new technology. As a result, Roosevelt established the Advisory Committee on Uranium in 1939. On August 2, 1939, at the urging of scientist Leo Szilard, physicist Albert Einstein sent a letter to US President Franklin Roosevelt warning him that Nazi Germany may already be developing this strange and powerful new weapon. Word rapidly reached the United States and European allies that Nazi Germany was on a possible path to developing atomic weapons. This groundbreaking experiment sent shockwaves throughout the scientific community. On December 21, 1938, German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman became the first people to successfully split, or fission, a uranium atom.

Nuclear time locations